Winners announced for the Water Challenge
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The evaluation of the proposals to the Water Challenge has now been completed, and four winners were announced in February 2016. We would like to thank everyone who visited Statoil Innovate and showed interest in the challenge.
The goal of the Water Challenge was to reduce water consumption so as to benefit the environment and local communities, and reduce costs. Water is a precious natural resource and managing it is one of the greatest challenges facing the onshore oil and gas industry. Reducing water consumption can save on both transport and energy costs.
The water challenge is a great example of how Statoil and GE, together with the winners, can fast track promising solutions to the market and take an active role in transforming the future of the oil and gas industry
Businesses, institutions, and individuals were invited to submit proposals for new solutions to reduce fresh water usage as well as treat and reuse water from shale production activities – while improving operational productivity.
The challenge received over 100 submissions from 23 countries. Of these, four winners were selected based on the degree of innovation, technically feasibility and commercial viability of their proposals.
Each winner was awarded an initial cash prize of $25,000 USD, with a discretionary funding pool of $375,000 USD earmarked for co-development activities to be decided based on a more in-depth evaluation of winning proposals.
Congratulations to the four winners who are:
Ahilan Raman, Clean Energy and Water Technologies, Australia
Solution: An integrated technology that first removes total organic compounds and then separates remaining compounds by creating ice crystals through “Eutectic freeze crystallization (EFC).”
Anthony Duong, Battelle Memorial Institute, USA
Solution: A nano-sponge – a gel formed of nanoscale particles is injected into hydraulically fracturing wells to soak up the halite ions (the main actors in forming salt deposits). As a result, salt is never allowed to crystalize, ensuring salt deposits cannot damage the equipment.
Karen Sorber, Micronic Technologies, USA
Solution: A low-pressure, low-temperature, mechanical evaporation technology – called MicroDesalTM – that purifies waste water from any source.
Chunlei Guo, University of Rochester, USA
Solution: A technique using high powered lasers to alter the surface of the inner walls of downhole production pipes, making a metal surface super water repellent.